Today, organizations increasingly rely on their computer networks for day-to-day operations, since networks are the backbone of large and medium sized organizations. To maintain network health, companies may spend vast amounts of money to acquire expensive network management solutions. Network management is the process of managing connections that exist between computers. Network management may include installation, administration and maintenance of a network operating system, cables, servers, routers and wide-area networks, as well as printers and other peripherals.
One responsibility for network administrators is to keep their networks up and running at all times. Several conditions may result in a network outage, including a switch interface going down, a break in the network cabling, network congestion, etc. Network management solutions are useful, so long as the Network Administrator (NA) or a Network Engineer is available at their console to solve future or present critical network conditions, should problems arise.
When a network problem occurs, a company may suffer heavy losses, depending on the scale of the problem, if the NA or engineer is not able to communicate with network components. For example, if a router goes down in Chicago while the NA is at a soccer game in California, the NA may be unable to respond to the problem if the NA can not get to a console.